3921km, 10 days, 1 man - a long and pointless adventure

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Leon H

Pack Dog
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
204
Reaction score
0
Location
Townsville, Australia
Bike
BMW R1200GS
It's been a looooooooong time since I've been on this fourm, mainly as I'd not been riding much so I felt I had nothing worthwhile to contribute!  I tried to post this in global report but for some reason I can't - so sorry now if this is in the wrong spot!

Day 1:  Cold and wet and cold and wet

The plan was simple enough.  Mel was going to Brisbane to work for the week.  I figured I might as well take the week off work, ride down from Townsville, spend a week catching up with mates and sampling some local roads, then ride home again, all the while staying in a flash CBD hotel with wife.  Kind of like a riding trip away without the guilt!

What I ended up getting was a 10 day, 3921km epic ball tearer of a ride!  And Iâ??ll attempt over the next few weeks to put my long and pointless ride report hereâ?¦

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A few days prior to the trip starting I figured out an alternative route down and back, to keep me away from the mind numbing and license damaging over-enforced boredom of highway 1.  But the week leading up to the trip was not good.  A cold and wet snap hit Queensland, and the few days before I took off were the coldest June days on record in town, and it poured rain.  I was not looking forward to the prospect of getting wet on a long ride.

The evening before my mate from Emerald came over came over, we downed a few bourbons and played guitar, and about 2200 the rain got even heavierâ?¦  I went to bed listening to the rain on the roof, feeling ever so slightly pissed off, but hopeful it would clear up.

Then when I got up it wasnâ??t raining.  It very dark and overcast, but at least it wasnâ??t raining as I rugged up in about 15 layers and set off from the houseâ?¦

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Well, I got about 3km before it started bucketing down.  And I mean bucketingâ?¦. I wasnâ??t happy.  The entire 400km to Mackay down the coast, it poured rain and was freezing.  Just north of Mackay I turned off the highway, and took an alternative route through the mountains and cane fields of the Pioneer Valley.  I strongly recommend this shortcut to avoid the traffic, avoid delays in Mackay, and have a ball on the back roads.  This route cut out about 1 hour for me.  It would have been insanely fun but, hey hey, it was still raining and cold.  By this time my legs and hands were totally frozen, and the bike was handling atrociously on the atomically slippery surface.  Had two massive front end slides the two time I tried to push it.  Not funâ?¦

I rejoined highway 1 just south of Sarina.  I had planned to much out up into the mountains again to avoid the 330km of nothingness that is the stretch from Sarina into Rockhampton, and take a heap of photos and stuff.  But I was so wet, cold and angry I decided no photos, no stopping, no scenic detour, Iâ??m just blasting straight down the highway into Rocky.  So I sat myself in the seat, and just hammered. 

I arrived in Rocky about 7 hours after I left Townsville.  Wet, cold, numb, tired, crabby.  I quickly stopped for fuel, headed just south of town, then turned south west up to Mt Morgan, and up onto the highlands, away from the main highway and hopefully out of the rain.  Wrong.

The Mt Morgan range from Rocky to Biloela is about 150km of really entertaining winding roads, and the climb up the escarpment is as exciting as any road in Queensland.  But in the rain and cold it was just hard, super slippery, and in my numb cold state my riding was shocking to say the least.  At the top of the range it was about 10 degrees, and raining, so I turned my grips up to full blast, tucked my right hand under my left armpit, gritted my teeth and just rode though 1.5 hours of freezing hell.  It normally wouldnâ??t bother me too much, but on top of the 7 hours of being wet and frozen, I wasnâ??t happy.  My hands were completely numb, it felt like the grips were doing nothing, even when I gripped on as hard as I could.  Turns out that was a VERY bad idea, but more on that later.

Anyway about 15km north of Biloela, there was a line in the sky, everything to the north was wet, and not a cloud in sight to the south.  It was bizarre, like a big shower curtain in the sky.  At 1650 in the afternoon, I saw the sun, weak and watery, for the first time that day.  That made me feel a bit better.  I rode through Biloela, south into a little 1 horse town called Thangool.  Stopped out the front of the pub, took my gloves off, went inside.  There was a fire in there and a heap of drunk happy people.  This was the place I needed to be.  I grabbed a room there for the night, took off my wet gear and put it in front of the heater, had a quick shower, then retired to the bar.  A few beers were consumed while chatting with locals about all manner of things.  They seemed confident that the rain would be all gone tomorrow, and Iâ??d have a great ride.  I tended to agree with them, I resolved to get back into the groove tomorrow, take heaps of photos, and have some fun heading into Brisbane.

I headed off to my room early to bed, Iâ??d done 878km in 9 hours, in freezing cold terrible weather.  It was one of the few days on a bike Iâ??ve had where I just didnâ??t really want to be there.  As I lay there, my hand that was on the throttle really started to ache, it kind of felt like it was burning.  No drama I thought, all will be good tomorrow, then drifted off into a very deep half drunk sleepâ?¦

To be continuedâ?¦
 
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